Always be pitching

writing / Always be pitching

Story of what I did all day as a manager

While managing the Growth team at Figma, I worked from home in a small, downstairs one-bedroom with two rooms. I worked in the bedroom and my wife Courtney worked in the everything-else room.

Every day I would have one-on-ones and interviews that Courtney would inevitably overhear through our bedroom door. These are what I miss most now when I'm not managing. I loved that an important part of my job was chatting with people about work and life.

One day at dinner, Courtney said, "It's fun hearing you tell the same stories all day." I was immediately on guard because roasting me is one of Courtney's favorite hobbies. I was ready for a clever burn but it turned out she was sincere. "You have your point for the day. It's funny to hear you react to different people, wonder what they're saying and hear you adjust the story based on who you're talking to."

Courtney's totally right. My first explanation of an idea is always bad. Sometimes it's because the idea is bad and other times it’s a good idea and I'm being confusing. Often in my first pass, I haven't understood everyone's perspective or missed a key detail. After a week of one-on-ones, I've refined or discarded the idea. Or someone gave me a new, better idea to start pitching.

Principles of constantly pitching ideas

Great engineering leaders are always pitching. They fill blank space in meetings with ideas and make time to share their thinking with others before it's fully developed.

This kind of pitching is NOT about convincing people. When you're too focused on being right, you miss the point and waste the team's time. The most important part is listening to how your audience responds and incorporating that in your thinking.

In practice, this can look different. For example:

• Proactively sharing what you're worried about with your reports in one-on-ones, even if it's not directly related to their work.
• Slacking a peer: "Hey, I had this idea. What do you think?"
• Explaining a sense that something is wrong to your boss even though you don't have the perfect answer yet.
• Repeating yourself over and over again with different people, even after feeling good about the idea and pitch, just to see their response.

There are lots of perks in exchange for repeating yourself:

• Get feedback and improve the idea. Pitch up, sideways and down for different perspectives.
• The pitch becomes clearer and more compelling. Interesting ideas require sharing more internal context than expected.
• Teammates get transparency about the leadership team's thoughts. When the team provides feedback, they become part of the decision-making process.
• Talking about fresh ideas is fun! Everyone wants to be on a creative team bubbling over with potential for awesomeness.

When you do this successfully, you will make better decisions faster and the team will be part of the process.

Key takeaways

To get really good ideas, constantly share your half-baked ideas and get feedback.

Sharing your early thoughts is not just for you, it’s also valuable to your team.